


Bona Fide

by raving_liberal



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: BAMF Karen Page, But Mostly Just Glad You're Alive Sex, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Karen Page Does Have A Life, Karen and Frank Reunion, Past Violence, Pete Castiglione alias, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Reporter Karen Page, Slightly Angry Sex, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 20:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: Four months after the shootout at the carousel, Frank Castle reappears and Karen Page finally gets that kiss.





	Bona Fide

**Author's Note:**

> This work was edited by the always awesome david of oz!

She should have kissed him. 

Later, after the elevator and Madani and the interview with Brett, after she goes home and showers and uses her point-tip tweezers to pluck fine slivers of glass and metal out of her face and hands, Karen plays this thought over and over in her head. She should have kissed Frank in that elevator. 

He stank. God, the smell was awful, gunpowder and sweat and blood layered under metal and singed flesh from the bomb. The deep gash on the right side of his head still oozed blood. It pooled inside his ear and ran down his neck. His sleeve was wet with it when she put her hand on his arm. Their foreheads had touched, resting together with an intense sort of intimacy that drove the thought of kissing from her mind in that moment. Frank’s hot breath on her face. Frank’s eyes, bright and full of pain and loss and fear—fear for _her_ , not himself—looking into her eyes. For a second, she thought they _were_ kissing, their faces were so close, but then Frank pulled away. He pulled back, and even though she reached for him, he was beyond her grasp. 

The urgency of the moment slammed back down on her, and she begged him to go, go and get somewhere safe, and he knocked the top panel of the elevator aside to climb up, and Karen knew then, she felt it with near-perfect certainty, that she would never see him again. She let him go and didn’t realize until hours later that in the midst of the cuts and contusions, the deep purple bruising with its lurid red borders, that the thing that hurt the most was that moment she thought she would kiss him and didn’t.

New York bounces back, and so does Karen Page. It’s something she loves about the city: its quick recovery, its stubborn refusal to lose itself to another act of terrorism. She feels brave and strong as she returns to work the day after the shooting, because despite Ellison’s half-hearted protests, they both know she has an exclusive story to write. She writes and ignores the sick worry gnawing at her stomach. 

When Karen hears about the shooting at the carousel in Central Park, she knows it’s Frank. The police won’t admit it—or Brett won’t, at least, if he even knows the truth—and Special Agent Madani is ‘on personal leave’, which could be Homeland-speak for anything from dead to fired to locked away in some blacksite prison never again to see the light of day. Karen waits for Frank to show up, or at the very least, to call. 

Days pass. The gnawing worry explodes into fear and guilt. She should have stopped him. She should have helped him. She should have turned him over to Madani and tried to save him from himself. Karen tries to interview the two teenagers from the carousel, but their names aren’t in any of the police reports, nor is their information in any of the records for carousel employees. Somebody cleaned up after Frank, somebody with a lot of reach and a hell of a lot of pull. Karen waits, and Frank still doesn’t contact her.

Remembering the last time Frank reappeared again after his purported death, Karen starts carrying a stack of ten and twenty dollar bills. She doesn’t exactly have a lot of money to spare, not with her new-new apartment, not when rent prices in Hell’s Kitchen have started creeping up again ever since Matt— 

_No_. That’s still too hard to think about. The crime rate is down, so the prices are up. She tucks folded bills into hands and cups and open violin cases, searching every face for Frank. For proof of life. She doesn’t find Frank, but she does develop a reputation among the homeless population of Manhattan, and sometimes they offer her tips or leads after she’s handed them a twenty. None of the leads points her to Frank, but in the ensuing weeks she uncovers a dog fighting ring, reports on corruption inside the DA’s office, and starts following (and abruptly loses) the trail of an enhanced person allegedly responsible for a string of deaths around the city.

Karen never stumbles upon Frank Castle squatting in a doorway or sleeping in an alley. He doesn’t turn up in any local ERs or morgues. She was right, after all, when she thought she would never see him again. He’s dead. He must be. She knew it would end this way, which doesn’t explain why she feels something akin to when Lewis blew himself up in the freezer – a painful boom and then a rushing vacuum. Sometimes, when she allows herself to really think about it, she can’t breathe. All the air is sucked into that vacuum, and it hurts all over again. 

This isn’t to say she isn’t complete. Her life has meaning. It has purpose, and people, and joy. She sees Foggy when she can, and though their nights out tend towards the drunk and maudlin more often than not, at least she knows Foggy _gets_ it. He understands that abundant happiness and crippling grief can exist in the same fragile human body. Karen doesn’t talk about Frank by name, but she and Foggy talk about loss. Foggy doesn’t press; maybe he assumes she’s still broken up over Matt’s death, and she is, of course, in a way. Part of her will always regret how things ended between her and Matt, because they started with so much hope and promise and beauty. Maybe something is slightly broken inside her, that these are the men she falls for. Maybe like recognizes like. 

Things do get easier. Whole days pass without Karen thinking about dead vigilantes, or live ones, for that matter. She wins an award for excellence in investigative journalism for a piece that has absolutely nothing to do with the Punisher or the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She repaints her apartment a bright, buttery yellow that catches and holds the small amount of sunlight that finds its way through her bedroom window. She befriends an associate editor at _The Bulletin_ , who introduces her to a book club that turns out to be a very poor cover for a fancy cocktails club, and suddenly, somehow, Karen has girlfriends again for the first time since she moved to New York. 

Four months after the incident at the carousel, Karen comes into the office to find a Post-it stuck to her computer screen. This isn’t too unusual. For all that most of their work is done on computers these days, journalist still appreciate a good, solid Post-it. The only thing written on the Post-it is a number, local area code. Karen calls it and, after five rings, is rolled into voicemail with a robotic default greeting. She leaves a message anyway. 

“This is Karen Page. I think you want to speak with me.”

Karen leaves her mobile number and, on a potentially risky whim, the name of a diner not far from her apartment. It has mediocre food and slow service, but the coffee is excellent. She puts on a cute dress (for no particular reason, really), goes there that night after work, and drinks good coffee and eats slightly soggy apple pie. She stays until the waitress starts eyeing her critically, and tries not to feel disappointment when she pays her bill without having heard back from the mystery number. She returns to the diner every night for the next four nights, in a different cute dress each night, with the same okay-maybe-actually-disappointing results, and at 11:30 on the fifth night, a man walks in, a ball cap pulled low over his face. He heads straight to the counter and speaks with the waitress.

Karen takes a breath in and holds it, holds it, holds it. He’s the right size and shape. He moves the right way. He turns in Karen’s direction, and she sees his face and exhales in a single, excited burst. The first thing she notices is that he has a beard, though it’s trimmed more neatly than it was the last time she saw him with one. The second thing she notices is that he doesn’t have any black eyes, his nose doesn’t seem like it’s been broken recently, and he looks, in general, like someone who hasn’t been in a fight in the last few weeks. 

They make eye contact all the way from the counter to Karen’s booth, where Frank tips his head in the direction of the seat opposite Karen and asks, “You mind?”

Karen shakes her head and gestures to the seat. “Please.”

Frank sits. Karen drinks in the sight of him in his navy canvas work jacket with plaid flannel lining. The gash over his right ear has healed into a raised ridge of scar tissue, a thick pink interruption in the dark line of his hair. One unruly lock falls over his forehead, filling Karen’s heart with lightness. He looks so _civilian_. 

The waitress sets a cup of coffee in front of Frank, who murmurs a quick “thanks, ma’am” without ever taking his eyes off Karen. He looks as transfixed by her as she feels by him. He curls one hand, thick with calluses, around the mug, but doesn’t drink.

“So,” Karen says, when the silence stretches for too long. 

“Yeah,” Frank answers, and even though she hadn’t asked him a question, she still feels like he’s answering one.

“I thought you were dead,” she says. She looks away then, because it’s too much. She feels too many different, conflicting things when she looks at him. 

“I was, kinda,” Frank says. “I am, technically, or Frank Castle is, anyway.”

“Again? So you’re on the lam, is what you’re telling me?”

Frank shakes his head. “Wasn’t me this time. It was Homeland. I’m Pete Castiglioni now.”

Karen snorts indelicately. “For how long, Frank?”

“It’s the real deal. Homeland wiped my prints from the system, my DNA. The Pete Castiglioni alias is the real deal, yeah? He’s bona fide.”

 _Bona fide_ isn’t something Karen ever expected to hear coming out of Frank’s mouth. She tries to conjure up a mental picture of Frank sitting through _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ but it’s too impossible, and she starts to giggle. Frank looks at her in confusion, which only makes her laugh harder. He finally drinks some of his coffee while Karen gets her manic giggling under control. 

“I’m sorry,” Karen says, then laughs one more time. She clamps down on it, turning it into a sputtered half-laugh, and presses her fingertips to her lips. 

“It’s alright,” Frank says. He takes another swallow of his coffee, watching her all the while. 

“I’m fine,” Karen says. “Sorry.” Frank shrugs off the apology, so she continues, “Where have you been all this time, Frank?”

“Here and there,” Frank says. “Working some construction. Helping a friend out with these meetings he runs.”

Karen raises her eyebrows at that. “Meetings?”

“For other guys like me,” Frank says.

“Are there other guys like you, Frank?” Karen asks, not at all sarcastically. Okay, maybe _slightly_ sarcastically. She imagines a recovery group for mass murderers, a Vigilantes Anonymous.

Frank sips his coffee. “Other vets, I mean. Lots of those out there.”

Well great. Now Karen feels guilty. “I’m sorry,” she says again.

“What for?” Frank asks. “You the one sent us to war?”

Karen sighs. “I don’t know what to say to you. I really did think you were dead.”

“I’m sorry about that, I really am,” Frank says. “Had to lay low for a while if I wanted to keep Homeland off your scent, yeah? Didn’t want ’em sniffing around you.”

“I think Special Agent Madani already has my scent,” Karen says, watching Frank’s face carefully. It doesn’t change much.

“Madani,” he says, shaking his head. 

“Is she dead?” Karen asks. 

“Nah. Too stubborn,” Frank says. “She was in pretty rough shape when I saw her, but last I heard, she was recovering okay. Hell, she’s probably back on the job by now.”

Karen tamps down the reporterly urge to grill him about when he last saw Agent Madani, and instead says, “That’s good to hear.”

They fall into silence again, Frank drinking his coffee and Karen watching him drink it. Outside, a police siren goes off, and Karen holds her breath until the squad car passes, the lights reflecting off the diner’s glass windows. A wave of adrenaline courses through her body. She realizes abruptly that she’s angry with Frank, and that underneath the guilt and worry she _has been angry_ for months now. She’s been pissed off at Frank ever since he ditched her in the woods to go after Schoonover and finish up his vengeance–murder spree, and all through the on and off months of wondering if he were dead or in jail or something—maybe a variety of torture so horrific that her civilian mind can’t even conceive of it—even worse. She just keeps allowing herself to be distracted by the relief that he’s alive. 

“Goddammit, Frank,” Karen says, sharply, but still under her breath. 

Frank, to his credit, doesn’t look surprised by this turn of events. He merely gestures at the waitress for a refill of his coffee and then sips it patiently, the expression on his face unreadable to Karen. She doesn’t actually know him that well, after all.

When Karen realizes Frank isn’t going to be the one to break the silence, she leans in towards him, so she can keep her voice pitched low and still make sure she’s heard.

“Four months, Frank!” Karen hisses at him. “And don’t give me that ‘keeping Homeland off me’ bullshit. We both know you could get a message to me if you wanted to. I gave you plenty of opportunities!”

Frank sets his coffee down carefully. He doesn’t look distressed by Karen’s outburst. He looks, in fact, irritatingly _amused_ by it. Karen huffs a frustrated breath through her nose. 

“Well?” she demands. 

“Was wondering when you’d get around to the being pissed part,” Frank says.

“I’ve been mad since back when you murdered Schoonover after ramming us with a truck,” Karen says. Frank shakes his head.

“Nah. I don't mean mad,” Frank says. “I mean pissed, really pissed, like the kind of pissed that comes after the polite part.”

“I think I’m well within my rights to be pissed!”

“My wife, Maria,” Frank begins, and Karen rolls her eyes, because _here we go_ , it’s Frank Castle Story Time. “Every time I came home after a tour, first coupl’a days it was always real polite. She was just glad I was home in one piece, yeah? So she’d be real sweet to me, didn’t get impatient with me when I zoned out on her…” He trails off and stares into space over Karen’s shoulder, lost, perhaps, in memory.

“And?” Karen prompts.

Frank blinks a few time, like he’s coming up from underwater. “And then a few days would pass, and she’d remember she was pissed at me for going in the first place, and then oh man, would she let me have it.”

“This isn’t the same,” Karen says, but Frank continues without acknowledging her.

“She would chew my ass up one wall and down the other. She’d get so mad, her face would get red and— now, Maria, she hardly ever cussed, just wasn’t how she was raised, but she’d get going with me and she’d pull out the kinda language that’d melt the paint off the walls.” Frank laughs to himself softly. “Kind of language that’d make a marine blush, yeah? And I’d just take it, ’cause I figured she was right, I did run off to war and leave her all alone with those two little babies, not knowing if I was coming home or not.”

“Frank,” Karen starts, but he just holds up one hand.

“All I’m saying’s I get it, alright? I’m not gonna try and tell you not to be pissed at me,” Frank says. “I figured you’d get there eventually.”

“You didn’t leave me with two little babies,” Karen says, smiling a little now despite herself.

“Left you to clean up after me in that hotel, though.”

“Well, yes, but I’m only a little bit pissed about that part.”

Frank tips up his mug to drink the last sip of his coffee, and he’s smiling back at her when he puts it down again. 

“You want to hit me with your bag or something? Might make you feel better,” he offers.

“Frank, I swear to god—”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Frank says, laughing at her. “That thing looks like it weighs a ton, and I already got brain damage. Said so right in that legal file those lawyer friends of yours had on me.”

Karen sighs, a touch dramatically. This situation calls for a touch of drama. “Honestly, Frank.”

“You really oughta start calling me Pete,” Frank says.

“Oh really,” Karen says, deadpan, “oughta I?”

Frank shrugs. “For your safety, not mine.”

“You really piss me off, _Frank_.”

“Yeah. I been told I’ve got a knack for it, _Karen_.”

Another manic laugh bursts out of her, so loud that the waitress turns in their direction. Karen glances away quickly, but Frank turns his head, looking over his shoulder at the waitress and waving at her.

“What are you doing?” Karen whispers.

“Asking for the check,” Frank says, at a perfectly normal volume.

“We’re not done!” 

“We’re done _here_.”

Before Karen can protest, the waitress is at their table and Frank is asking for the check, which he pays immediately in cash before Karen can protest. She glares at him and drops a five on the table for a tip as soon as the waitress walks away again.

“So I guess I’ll see you again in another four to six months?” Karen asks.

Frank’s face actually turns a little pink, which seems to surprise them both. “I, uh. I was kinda hoping…”

“You want me to invite you back to my place,” Karen says. Frank’s face goes from a little pink to decidedly red. “Oh my god, Frank. You’re ridiculous. Yes, you can come to my apartment. I still have questions.”

Karen stands, then Frank stands, and despite all the anger screaming at her to do otherwise, Karen links her arm with his, like they’re a normal couple leaving a diner after a normal meal. She can feel the heat of his arm, the hard muscles of it, even through his jacket. He carries himself stiffly, back ramrod straight like a soldier’s— _die, die, die like a soldier_ whispers a menacing little voice in her head—and his face pointed forward. Karen steers him out of the diner and toward her apartment. Frank seems content to be steered, or else he already knows the way, because Karen has no trouble getting him to her building.

When she has to fumble in her purse for the key, though, an error she only made because she was so preoccupied with Frank, he jerks his arm from hers and scans the mostly-empty sidewalks for threats. He only relaxes after Karen has the building’s front door open and has walked inside. He closes the door behind them and makes sure it locks. 

“It’s a few floors up,” Karen warns, as though Frank weren’t a specimen of peak physical health. “We had an elevator when I first moved in, but it’s been broken for a couple of months. Nobody wants to complain, because it might remind the landlord that he could raise the rent and still be competitive.”

“It’s fine,” Frank says, though it obviously isn’t. He doesn’t try to push Karen out of the lead as they head up the stairs, but she hears his breath catch slightly at every door they pass, every turn in the stairs that obscures a clear line of sight. By the time they reach Karen’s floor, Frank has broken into a sweat, and she knows it doesn’t have anything to do with the comparatively mild physical exertion it took him to climb the stairs.

“I’m just down here,” Karen says. Frank nods silently. He’s breathing heavily now, too, and she considers that she has no real contingency plan for dealing with Frank if he decides to freak the fuck out in her apartment. She isn’t afraid of him, just for him. 

Once they’re inside, and Karen has locked all three locks on the door (knob, deadbolt, security chain), Frank settles a little. Karen sidesteps him like she would a skittish animal, walking into her small kitchen and pouring him a glass of water. She hands it to him, and he drinks it without argument.

“Thanks,” Frank says, once he’s emptied the glass.

“It’s pretty secure up here,” Karen says conversationally. “Barely a view, unless you count the brick wall next door, but at least I don’t have to worry about snipers. Oh, or coyotes! Those are becoming a nuisance, I hear, though I think you find them closer to the Park.”

“Yeah,” Frank says. He has that vague, drifted-off look again. 

“You have a lot of trouble with coyotes where you work?” Karen asks.

“Mmhmm. Yeah.”

“Nesting up in the scaffolding, right? I hear that’s a real problem.” Karen watches Frank’s face for the moment the topic of conversation actually hits him. She isn’t disappointed.

“Yeah, I, uh. We— yeah. Wait, are you talking about coyotes? Like actual coyotes?” Frank asks, suddenly looking confused and a little irritated, to Karen’s delight.

“Earth to Frank,” she says. “I thought we were having a conversation here!”

“Sorry,” he says. He does look sorry, maybe even slightly embarrassed.

“You really take all the fun out of giving you a hard time, you know that?” Karen asks.

Frank smiles sheepishly. “Yeah. Sorry ’bout that, ma—”

“Frank, so help me god, if you ‘ma’am’ me, I really am going to hit you with my purse.”

“Sorry ’bout that, _Karen_.”

“Oh, it’s fine, _Frank_.”

“Pete.”

“Not even for a second.”

Frank sighs. “It’s gonna let me live some sort of life again. Thought you might be okay with that.”

“Look, I’ll call you Pete in public. I’ll call you Pete on the phone, even.” Karen looks Frank straight in the eyes. “I am absolutely not calling you Pete in my apartment, not once, not even for practice.”

“Stubborn.”

“Guess you’ve got a type!” Karen retorts sharply, then feels her whole face flush. She sits down on her sofa and stares at her hands. Frank moves in her peripheral vision, sitting beside her.

“Guess I do,” Frank says. When Karen steals a glance at him from the corner of her eye, he’s staring at her intensely. 

“How would this work, Frank?” she makes herself say, before Frank can do anything, before she can do anything.

“Maybe it doesn’t,” Frank says. “Maybe we just sit here for a bit, yeah? Then I go home, leave you alone, let you live your life.”

Karen shakes her head violently. “I don’t want that.”

“Then maybe you’ve gotta give Pete a chance,” Frank says. “His paperwork’s good.”

“You still look like you, even with the beard,” Karen protests.

“Not to anybody else. Just to you.”

Karen suddenly imagines bringing Frank to _The Bulletin_ ’s office holiday party and introducing him as Pete, and when everyone else says he looked an awful lot like Frank Castle, she pictures herself insisting he doesn’t, like Hagrid claiming Buckbeak was an entirely different hippogriff. She starts to laugh hysterically. She might be ever so slightly losing her mind.

She laughs and laughs and starts to hyperventilate a little, because who could breathe? Who could breathe when Frank Castle is right there, whole and alive, after months of being dead?

“Shhh, hey, hey, it’s alright,” Frank murmurs. He brushes her hair away from her face, and it only makes her laugh harder, gasping for air. “Karen. It’s okay, yeah? We’re both okay.”

“You were dead!” Karen manages between manic spasms of giggles. “You were dead, and now you’re Pete!”

“I wasn’t dead. I’m sorry. I should’ve reached out sooner, but I was—”

“Worried!” Karen says, practically choking on her laugh.

“Yeah. I was, but not just because of what I said,” Frank says, so seriously that it puts a lid on Karen’s laughing fit.

“Then why. _Why_ , Frank? I thought you were dead, you let me think you were—” She breaks off. All that laughing must have brought her to tears, it had to be the laughing.

“I wasn’t ready for how I felt about you,” Frank says. “Hell, I’m still not ready, Karen, but I couldn’t make myself stay away anymore, not from you.”

Karen makes a soft “oh!” sound. Her face is wet, and the wild laughter still waits at the back of her throat, ready to resume at any moment, but all Karen can do is repeat the same soft, breathy “oh!”

Frank doesn’t touch her, doesn’t make a move to put an arm around her. “I’m sorry. None of this is on you, none of this is your fault, and I don’t expect anything from you. It wouldn’t be fair, probably wouldn’t be right, I don’t—”

“Oh, shut up, Frank!” Karen says, and Frank snaps a shocked “yes, ma’am” and does just that, shuts right up. Karen takes a breath to compose herself, then takes another, and then she pivots on the sofa, swinging one leg across Frank and shifting her body so she’s straddling him. His mouth hangs slightly open in surprise. One of his hands drifts tentatively to her lower back.

“We have a lot of confusing shit to figure out,” Karen says, leaning in close to Frank’s face, close enough to smell the coffee on his quickening breath. “But not tonight.”

Their faces are close, their breath mingling, and then their lips touch, at first just barely. It’s a chaste kiss, for all that Karen is in Frank’s lap, knees on either side of his thighs. They kiss like high school kids, closed lipped and shy, a press of lips and then away and then back again. Frank’s other hand traces up Karen’s spine to rest between her shoulder blades. She slides boths hands into his hair, and suddenly the kiss isn’t chaste anymore. 

She kisses him like she should have in the elevator. Frank’s fingers dig into her back, her hands tug at his hair, and they kiss and kiss until she can’t breathe, until she doesn’t care that she can’t breathe. His lips are a little chapped and his beard is wiry against her face. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her more tightly against him. She presses her knees to his hips on either side, her chiffon floral dress—chosen, yes, because she hoped the person who left her the note was Frank, because she wanted to look pretty—riding up her thighs. 

Frank is the one who breaks the kiss, pulling back enough for his eyes to search Karen’s face. They’re both breathing hard, Karen’s fingers still buried in Frank’s hair, the chiffon fabric of her dress bunched up in Frank’s hands. Frank rests his forehead on hers, and it’s momentarily too much like the elevator. Karen shudders. 

“Hey,” Frank says, releasing and smoothing down the back of her dress. “Hey. You okay?”

Karen nods. Their foreheads are still touching, so it makes him nod, too. Yes from both of them. They’re both okay, aren’t they? They’re here, they’re alive. God, Frank’s thigh muscles feel like iron against the backs of Karen’s legs. She drops more of her weight into his lap. His breath catches.

“Yeah,” Karen says softly. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m good. I’m fine.”

“Those are three kinda different answers,” Frank points out, which makes Karen huff a little laugh.

“Don’t overthink it,” she says.

“Just want to be sure you know what you’re doing,” Frank says. “I need to know you’re—”

“What?” Karen asks. “In my right mind? Not so swept up and overwhelmed by your manliness that I can’t think clearly? Don’t flatter yourself, Frank.”

Frank smiles, just enough that it crimps the corners of his eyes. “No danger of that, Karen, believe me.”

“Then what?” Karen asks again.

“I just need to know you’re alright,” Frank says. “You take a lot of risks. Seems like you like to live a little dangerously, yeah? I want to make sure that’s not what this is.”

Karen shakes her head. “That’s not what this is. This is— I feel _safe_ with you, not in danger.” 

“Alright,” Frank says. 

“Alright,” Karen agrees. “So, are we doing this or not?”

Frank laughs loudly, startling her, though in a pleasant way. “Yeah, I think we are,” he says. 

“Good,” Karen says and kisses him again. She puts even more intent into the kiss, moving her body against his, rocking her hips to make his breath catch against her lips. She realizes that at some point, her shoes came off, though she can’t pinpoint exactly when. Not worth worrying about – the apartment is small, so they can’t have gone far. Frank drops one hand down to her right knee, sliding up the outside of her leg under the hem of her dress, which is now riding up around her hips. He thumbs the lace edge of her panties. She kisses him harder, tugs on his hair, until he moves his hand around to cup the right side of her ass. 

He still has on his work jacket. Karen shoves it off his shoulders, pushing it down, and they do a little mutual shimmy-and-repositioning until the jacket is off, then both of Frank’s hands are under her dress. Karen starts unbuttoning Frank’s shirt, then changes her mind and starts unbuckling his belt, then goes back to his shirt, making him laugh at her. 

“Mad you can’t do everything at once?” Frank asks.

“Shut up, Frank,” Karen says, successfully unbuckling his belt. 

“We don’t gotta rush anything,” he says.

“ _I_ do!” Karen says. She pops open the button of his jeans. 

“God, you’re stubborn.”

“Yes, which is why I’m an award winning journalist,” Karen says. She rises up onto her knees and awkwardly slides her panties down until Frank clues in, which happens pretty fast, and helps her pull them off. The chiffon folds of her dress fall demurely around her hips as she settles back down on top of Frank’s lap. She finds the zipper on his jeans and works it down as she kisses him again, then tugs his fly open. 

Frank catches her hands in his, holding them away from his fly. “You sure?” he asks, like she isn’t the one straddling him and practically ripping his jeans off. It’s sweet, but like he said, she’s stubborn. She gently extricates her hands from his and slides one into the front of his jeans, palming his erection through his boxers.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m sure. Very, very sure. Are _you_ sure?”

Frank nods slowly. “I haven’t— not since Maria.”

“Been a while for me, too,” Karen says. “I bet we’ll remember how it works.”

That makes Frank smile, then Karen moves her hand and that makes him gasp. Between the two of them, they get his jeans and boxers pushed down past his hips. Karen’s usually a foreplay girl, god, she could let a guy go down on her for hours, but maybe getting blown up and shot at and narrowly avoiding death served more or less the same purpose with Frank. She doesn’t want to wait. She just wants him.

Karen raises herself up on her knees again and starts to move forward, but Frank stops her with his hands on her hips, and asks, “Don’t we need a condom?”

Karen shakes her head. “I have Skyla.”

“Who’s Skyla?” Frank asks.

“An IUD,” Karen says, laughing at him. “God, Frank, you’re such a—” She doesn’t really know _what_ he is, though, so she just shifts and lowers herself down onto him. 

They both exhale slowly, loudly. Frank wraps his arms around her, Karen rests her forehead on his, and they start moving together, working in tandem. She rises up, and Frank pulls her back down, and she rides him like this for what feels like hours, days, forever, maybe. She can feel her chest flushing, the pink blush creeping up her neck to her face. Her fingers twine in Frank’s hair, or her hands are both palms-down on his chest, or she’s cradling his face in her hands, kissing him. They’re both in constant motion, trying to touch everything and take it all in at the same time. 

Tendrils of Karen’s hair cling to her face and Frank’s. Sometimes she throws her head back, eyes closed, but she always returns her forehead to his, staring into his eyes. When she finally comes, it’s a rolling wave that moves through her whole body. She cries out, says Frank’s name. She keeps moving, riding him, repeating his name softly until he comes, too, his hands clenched into fists in the fabric of her dress, pressed against her back. Karen kisses him again, languidly and lazily, then rests her cheek against his, both of them breathing heavily. 

“You’re staying the night,” Karen says into his ear. “It’s not a question.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Frank says. Karen digs her knee into his hip and makes him laugh. 

After a few minutes, they shift position, rearrange clothing somewhat, and both end up lying down on the sofa, Frank flat on his back and Karen curled against his side and half on top of him, her head resting next to his. 

“Tell me the truth,” Karen says.

“I wouldn’t ever lie to you,” Frank says.

“Good,” Karen says. “So, did you come out of hiding for this?”

“What?” Frank asks, sounding genuinely affronted. “No. I wanted to see you. And I wasn’t in hiding. I told you, Pete’s—”

“Bona fide. The genuine article. I know, Frank.”

“Didn’t think you really felt what I felt, is all,” Frank says.

“Oh, Frank,” Karen says, with a dramatic sigh. “I felt it, okay?”

“Okay. Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They lie there in silence, Frankly slowly running his hand up and down Karen’s back. They’ve sweated through their clothes, though, and as the sweat cools, Karen starts to shiver a little. 

“I think it’s bedtime,” Karen says, sitting up.

“D’you want me to go?” Frank asks. Karen shoots him an ‘are you shitting me?’ look. 

“I want you to take me to breakfast in the morning,” Karen says. “Pete being a legitimate earner and all.”

Frank grins. “I think I can manage that.”

“Fair warning: I can eat my weight _and_ your weight in bacon.”

“Maybe just keep it to your weight in bacon. Pete’s not that legitimate of an earner.”

As they transition into the bedroom, slipping out of their clothing surprisingly shyly, all things considered, Karen suddenly processes that the next day is Saturday.

“Shit!” she says.

“What’s wrong?” Frank asks.

“I have book club every other Saturday,” Karen says. “It’s a brunch thing.”

“Well, I promised myself I wouldn’t be a negative influence on your life,” Frank says.

“But?” Karen prompts.

“But you oughta skip book club, yeah?” he says, throwing back the covers on Karen’s bed and sitting. He catches Karen’s hands and pulls her down with him. 

“Yeah, I oughta skip the book club,” Karen agrees, then kisses him. They kiss for a while, but it’s already late, so eventually Karen settles against Frank’s chest, his arms around her. 

“We’ve probably still got a lot to talk about,” Frank says.

“Mmm. Not tonight, Frank.”

“Yeah, and maybe not tomorrow, when you’re skipping book club, either, but soon.”

Karen lifts her head to look at Frank. “Oh, believe me, we’re going to talk. I’m probably going to be mad at you again, too, and I still have no idea how you’re going to fit in my life, considering—Frank, so help me, do _not_ say anything about Pete—you still look like Frank Castle.”

“We could skip town,” Frank suggests.

“Tempting, but I’ve already done that before,” Karen says. “The same drama always finds you, no matter how far away you go.”

Frank nods, pulling Karen against him tightly. “I’m still pretty messed up, yeah?”

“That’s two of us, then,” Karen says.

“Think we can really figure it out?” 

Karen shrugs. “I hope so. Things go to shit fast around here, though, so we’ll have to be ready to roll with whatever comes next.”

“Pete’s a pretty adaptable guy,” Frank says. Karen groans and headbutts him, albeit lightly, in the shoulder.

Karen must be more exhausted than she realized, because she falls asleep quickly, before she can protest about Pete any further. When she wakes up in the late morning, Frank is still asleep, and a thin beam of sunlight pours in from the window and falls across his face, lighting the hard angles of his cheekbones and nose with gold. The gnawing guilt and worry in her gut is calm for once, and, in the morning-after afterglow, even tamps down the residual anger. Karen has no clue how this will work. She’ll have to hide Frank from Ellison, from Foggy, from any high-profile public space. She also knows the vigilante type – the odds aren’t bad that Frank will return to his Punishing some day. Somebody will come looking for him, or he’ll go looking for someone else, and all of this could end how it began, with violence and terror.

For now, though, the morning is quiet and everyone is safe, so Karen does what she should have done in the elevator. She kisses him.


End file.
